“No, but thank you for asking.”
“I saw you looking at the house.” He nods toward the FOR SALE sign. “And walking.”
Neither are questions. Did he see me on Gia’s porch?
“I’m in the market for a new house, closer to work,” I say. “This neighborhood is one I’ve been thinking of. I have friends who live here.”
He clears his throat, or maybe it’s a scoff of disbelief. “The realtor’s number is on the sign. If you want to see it, all you have to do is call.”
Whatever would I do without you, Captain Obvious?
My phone chimes again. “It was nice to meet you, but I need to take care of this.”
He taps the side of his fist on the car window’s ledge and steps away, leaving me barely enough room. My stomach is fluttery, my fingers trembling.
Fuck you.
Fuck.
CHAPTER FOUR
THEN
“What if you had to eat a bug? What would you eat?” Gia said.
We were in the house, sprawled on the basement floor, and it was almost as dark as the first time we’d sneaked in, on account of the rain. We’d been lucky and made it inside right before it got bad and had been smart enough to take off our shoes so we wouldn’t track in mud.
“That’s disgusting,” Rachel said.
“A ladybug,” Becca said. “They’d be crunchy.”
Gia and I cracked up, while Rachel made puking sounds.
I said, “An ant. A teeny, tiny, baby ant.”
“But if it’s so small, you might not be able to chew it,” Becca said. “It might crawl back up. Or come out of your nose!”
Rachel shook her head. “I’d never ever eat a bug, no matter what.”
“You have to pick,” Gia said.
“Fine,” Rachel said. “I’d pick a cricket.”
“They’re huge,” Gia said.
“Yeah, but some people eat them,” Rachel said.
Gia rubbed her chin as if she had a beard, and said, “I pick Heather to go next.”
I already knew what I was going to ask. “What if you had to move someplace else? Where would you go?”
“Alaska,” Rachel said. “To see penguins.”
“Penguins aren’t in Alaska, dummy,” Becca said. “They’re in Antarctica and you can’t live there. It’s all ice.”
“Oh,” Rachel said, and her face got all sad-hurt.
“I’d live someplace warm,” Becca said. “Like Florida.”
“But they have flying cockroaches,” I said.
“So?”
“What if they flew in your hair and got stuck?” I said.
“I don’t want to what if anymore,” Rachel said. “Becca, can you tell the rest of the story now?”
“Yes, tell the rest,” I said. I’d tried to get Becca to tell us—or at least me—more, but she wouldn’t.
“Please,” Gia said, her hands clasped together under her chin.
Becca leaned back on stick-straight arms.
“Come on, Bec,” I said.
“Yeah, come on,” Rachel said.
Becca grinned slow and wide, like a Cheshire cat. “O-kay. I can’t tell you the rest—I told you it was long—but I can tell you some more.”
She stared at the ceiling, her mouth working for what felt like forever before she said, “The people decided to dig the Red Lady out, but when they dug the hole, it was empty, remember?” She waited for us to say yes. “They left it like that and no one talked about her. Like nothing had happened. But they all had dreams, remember that, too?”
Again, she waited for us to respond.
“Good. So the dreams stopped, but everyone felt like they were being watched all the time, no matter where they went. Then they started hearing their name whispered. At first they thought it was a neighbor or something, but no one else was ever there. One night a woman woke up and thought it was her son, but he was asleep. The voice kept saying her name, so she followed it outside, thinking maybe someone was hurt. The next morning a neighbor found her in the hole, dead, mouth full of dirt.”
“Gah,” Rachel said, covering her mouth.
I tugged on my lower lip and ran my tongue across the back of my teeth. I wondered if the woman was dead first or if the dirt killed her.
“But the worst part?” Becca said.
“What?” Gia said.
“They found a long, smeary trail of blood on the ground leading to the hole. They buried the woman and filled the hole back in, but that night, the man who found the woman heard the voice, too. He went to look and bam, gone. They found the hole open and him in it the next day. No matter how many times they filled the hole, it kept happening. And even though people knew they shouldn’t follow the voice, knew it was a trick, they couldn’t help it. It was like they had to go, and when they did they ended up dead. They tried tying each other up at night, but it didn’t help. They’d find piles of rope where people should be. They tried putting cotton in their ears, but it didn’t work either because they were hearing the voice only with their minds.
“One man packed up his family and left. For two days, nobody heard the voice, but the morning after that, they found the man’s wife in the hole, cold and dead. The next night, his son, and the night after, the man.”
“She wouldn’t let them leave,” I said.
“Right. Every morning someone else turned up dead until everyone was gone.”
I clapped. I shouldn’t have been happy, but they shouldn’t have buried her alive. And Becca was right about the women who were supposed to be the Red Lady’s friends. It didn’t matter if they were scared; you always helped your friends.
“So that’s it? Everyone died?” Gia said. “Then what? Did the witch go away?”
“I didn’t say it was the end of the story,” Becca said. “It’s the end of this part.”
“Wait,” Rachel said. “If the witch didn’t have hands, how could she have put the dirt in their mouths? She wasn’t even alive anymore, was she?”
Gia grunted and clutched her belly. At my frown, she said, “I have cramps.”
“Ugh, I have my period, too,” I said.
“Me three,” Becca said.
We all looked at Rachel.
“I don’t have mine,” she said. “But I can tell it’ll be any day.”
“That’s so weird, right?” Gia said. “That we all get it the same time?”
“Nah, my mom and I get it close, too,” I said. “She said it happens when girls are around each other a lot.”
“I hate it,” Gia said.
She’d had it the longest, since she was eleven. I’d had it for six months, Becca a little longer, and Rachel only two months ago. Afterward, her mom wanted to have the talk with her. Talk about embarrassing. We already knew about sex. My parents had told me when I was nine because I’d heard a kid at school talking about a vagina kiss, so I’d asked what it was. All our parents would’ve had heart attacks if they’d known we’d found a magazine in the field last year and knew a lot more than anyone had told us.